Dupicate bridge is a card game in which several teams of two players each play, one against another, several preselected and pre-dealt hands of bridge. Each individual hand is played and scored like ordinary contract bridge. After each hand, however, both teams and cards rotate according to some established pattern so that each two-player team plays against every other two-player team and also so that each two-player team plays each of the pre-dealt hands. Final scoring in duplicate bridge is not based strictly on how well one team plays a particular hand but rather on how well the team plays in comparison to how well the other teams play the same hand.
Each of the pre-selected and pre-dealt hands is placed in a flat rectangular receptacle having pocket-like openings along each side for holding each of the four hands face down. This receptacle is ordinarily called "the board". After each game is completed, the cards are carefully returned to the board in the same order so that the board is then ready to be played by two more teams.
Another feature of duplicate bridge is that the scores of previous teams playing the same hand or board must be concealed from other teams until they have completed playing that board. Otherwise, two new teams playing the hand could adjust their bidding and playing depending on their interpretation of the performances of previous teams playing the same hand. To this end, individual score sheets have trypically been folded in some fashion to conceal the recorded scores. This leads to difficulties in handling the score sheets, loss of time, and possible exposure of scores if the sheet is not properly folded.
Still another feature of duplicate bridge is that at the conclusion of a tournament, each of the score sheets, one for each board which has been played, must be collected and the scores must be tabulated or "match-pointed" to determine the winning team. This has typically required that someone transpose the individual scores from each of the "board" score sheets to a master score sheet. This manual process is time-consuming and frequently leads to errors. It is this process which is eliminated by this invention.
The prior art is replete with score sheets and various other apparatus related to playing duplicate bridge and similar games. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,314,693 shows a Duplicate Bridge Scoring Aid. U.S. Pat. Nos. 835,833 and 1,792,471 show score sheets for duplicate bridge. None of these patents, however, addresses the very real problem of compiling and tabulating scores in a duplicate bridge tournament comprising many teams.